Difficult
by Fiercest
Summary: Being in love with Kuchiki Rukia was difficult. Asking her to marry him was harder still - A parody of every cliched proposal out there.


**A/N: ****I love it okay? This is the Sequel to **_**Easy**_** that I sort of wrote first.**

**This is dedicated to WatermelonPrincess (God, I hope I spelled that right) who reviewed EVERY chapter of Serendipity from chapter 1-15 then EVERY bleach oneshot. Girl, you are awesome in every way! *glomps***

**Disclaimer: Ya huh, sure.**

**Playlist: Every Other Time by LFO**

Difficult.

Being in love with Kuchiki Rukia wasn't easy. In truth, Ichigo hadn't really expected it to be. But it wasn't hard either.

Falling for her was the easy part. It just happened. She was like sunlight; a constant and he found that he couldn't help himself. Dealing with her, however, was the hard part.

Something he had never thought would come of that love was a relationship, yet another thing he'd never considered being a part of.

Strangely though, he didn't mind.

They both had considerably hard lives; they lived for the fight, fought in a war, warred for peace and found that peace during or after a fight. It was a strange cycle. One that they hated, loved and endured.

Nearly every day was an epic battle, in which they would risk their lives to protect and fight and win. They would cover each other's backs, watch their own weak points and shield others from killing strikes. They were partners. One finely tuned machine, so aware of each other's thoughts and intent.

But then there were slow nights, not every day had to be an epic catastrophe in the making. There were nights when there were no hollows to kill, no wounds to nurse, no wars to wage and they find themselves abnormally normal, having a strangely normal, boring night.

………………………………………………………………………………………………

- - -

Rukia sat across their small kitchen table, knees brought up to rest on the table in a way that would shame the Kuchiki elders, and holding five cards. She reached her hand forward to adjust her sweatpants at her ankle than pushed all her chips forward.

She smirked at him, "You look like a friggin frog when you sit like that." He jeered. Her grin simply widened as he rolled his eyes.

"I call."

He smirked, "Full house." He tossed his hand onto the table top and challenged her with his taunting amber eyes.

"Aw," she sighed, "poor unfortunate Ichigo. I WIN SUCKA!" She leaned forward and pulled the large pot towards her.

"You cheated!"

"Did not! You're just a sore loser."

"Did so!"

"Prove it."

"YOU HAVE _FIVE_ ACES!!!"

- - -

………………………………………………………………………………………………

Rukia will never admit it but when Ichigo fights for her she wants to laugh. Because she loves it and yet it's hilarious, because it's so out of character yet not at the same time.

Everything about him says that he'll let everyone fight their own battles and only step in should the need arise and yet when she explicitly ordered him not to follow her to Sereitei all those years ago, he went a fought for her when she didn't need it, or rather, didn't want it.

He doesn't enjoy fighting other people's battles. She knew enough about him to know that.

But she'd never really given thought to his own battles for another, because they were just so much a part of who he was.

………………………………………………………………………………………………

- - -

"Is that so?" Byakuya said in a flat voice.

"Yes, Kuchiki-taichou, You have known my intentions for quite some time and I want to make an honest woman out of her… Finally." He looked away awkwardly while mumbling the last word.

"And you think she'll agree?" the ever emotionless man smirked calmly. "_Rukia_, who has shuddered at the very idea of such a commitment since before she ever came here? I think not."

The Kurosaki glared, "I don't care," the noble continued, unfazed, "You have my blessing."

And for the first time that day Ichigo smiled. The boy bowed to the man who was centuries older than himself then stood straight, right in front of him.

Then suddenly he punched the captain square in the jaw. "Damn it Byakuya, she's your sister, geez, show some backbone!" he left him holding his chin and smirking.

- - -

………………………………………………………………………………………………

He loved her dearly, though showing it wasn't exactly high on his to-do list. He knew she knew and he knew that it was enough for the both of them. They showed each other in their own ways, on their own time, when they were alone. Which was how he liked it.

He never cared for public displays of his oh-so-obvious affection so what society thought of them meant very little to the young shinigami.

The reason he wanted to ask was because he loved her and he wanted everyone to finally know. He wanted tangible proof; he wanted her to belong to him. Though he knew telling Rukia about 'owning' her would _not_ end well for him, should he phrase it like that.

Ichigo was always cocky, except when it came to emotion; he was well aware how little he knew about them. But he had been fully sure he knew what her answer would be, he told himself he wasn't being prideful in thinking so.

………………………………………………………………………………………………

- - -

Ichigo had collapsed onto his bed in the squad 9 three months later. Utterly exhausted. Kuchiki Byakuya had died the day before. And Rukia was acting like she was completely okay. She fought with him that morning as per usual, she bossed around their squad also as per usual and she visited Kidagaara to get updates on her old squad, also as per friggin usual.

He groaned and slung an arm over his eyes knowing that all that meant that she was definitely not okay. Fan-freaking-tastic.

He dreaded dealing with his lieutenant when she got home.

If he knew her, which he did, she would start by picking an excruciatingly loud and tiring fight and ending the night with a very different, more pleasant but still exhausting battle. He really didn't feel like it. In fact, he had planned to rest up for tomorrow when he'd planned to ask the possibly unbalanced woman to marry him, but then her brother and best friend had to go off and get themselves killed.

That was when Rukia decided to come home.

"Yo," she sighed as she collapsed next to him on the bed, clearly exhausted. "I feel like I could sleep forever." She tried to maneuver herself around to use his chest as a pillow but her body wasn't cooperating so she gave up. "_You're_ dealing with the recruits tomorrow. Those brats will be the death of me."

Knowing he'd regret this in a few moments when he was too beaten to move he sighed, "Rukia…" he sat up, dragging her with him, "Are you gonna be okay?" he glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes.

He thought she would shout something along the lines of "No I am NOT OKAY YOU FOOL!"

Which is why he wasn't prepared for the reality in which her upper lip began to tremble like a nine on the Richter scale. "N-n-n-n-no!" She fell forward to rest her face on his shoulder.

Being Ichigo and having never seen her cry, he freaked out, "R-Rukia!"

"I-I-I j-just l-l-lost my brother and my best friend and now my g-godamn dignity, I'm tired and dammit why can't I stop crying?!" She shouted. "I NEED TO KILL SOMETHING!!" Suddenly finding energy she sprang up and whipped her eyes.

"You bipolar bitch, come back here," he whined. She didn't.

"If I asked you to marry me would you stop?" she whirled around and gave him a look he'd never seen then huffed and stomped to the door.

"No."

"Is that a no it won't stop you? Or a 'no you won't'?"

- - -

………………………………………………………………………………………………

Ichigo Kurosaki isn't the type to take no for an answer. Not when he really wants something. He is the type who knows what he wants and gets his ass kicked on the way to getting it but the point is that eventually he does.

………………………………………………………………………………………………

- - -

They were eating dinner at his fathers home. Karin had been elbowing him in the ribs all night because by some psychic power that his baby sister had always possessed _she knew_.

Karin knows everything, it's a fact of life that he'd learned to accept long ago because he had never found a way to explain it.

Finally she hit a pressure point with her nudging. "Marry me," he coughed then repeated more casually and not at all like the desperate puppy dog he was.

Isshin actually cried some crap about grandkids and Yuzu, shrieked and giggled excitedly while Karin sat back, snorted then smirked, probably already knowing the answer.

Stupid know-it-all sisters.

Rukia who had been engaged in a deep conversation with Isshin on the pros and cons of certain methods of kidou turned back to Ichigo for a brief moment to calmly tell him, "no."

………………………………………………………………………………………………

"Say yes," he growled as he lay under her.

Rukia rolled her eyes and proceeded to roll off of _him_ and switch off the light. "Goodnight moron."

………………………………………………………………………………………………

She tried to ghost passed him on her way to her third seats office, before he could even open his mouth she shut him down. "No."

"I wasn't going to ask you bitch! I was goi-!"

"No!"

………………………………………………………………………………………………

_  
"If Music be the food of love, play on.  
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,  
the appetite may sicken and so die.  
That strain again! It had a dying fall.  
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sounds  
that breathes upon a bank of violets,  
Stealing and giving no odor."_

"I have no idea what that means. Modern English makes no sense to me."

………………………………………………………………………………………………

Forty-three attempts, twenty-six humiliations and four broken bones later Ichigo was sitting at his desk, banging his head against the wood and wondering how he'd become such a sap.

"Oi Rukia," oh well, as long as he was being pathetic, "let's get married."

She didn't take her eyes off the calluses she was bandaging, "No."

"Oi, are you gonna tell me why or what?" he asked, still not lifting his head from the desk.

"Many reasons."

"Such as…?"

"Hmm…I dunno Ichigo, maybe it has something to do with the fact that," she snorted, "The first time you asked me I was walking out the friggin door to kill something because my best friend died, than my brother, than the I found out that I'm my brothers sole heir, making me head of the Kuchiki clan, THAN the damn elders went to central 46 contesting his decision, THAN I had to deal with YOUR new recruits, so excuse me if I wasn't in the best of moods." She turned her fierce eyes on him, "OR it could be because I have no idea why the hell you want to get married in the first place." She slammed her palm on the desk in front of him, "OR because I don't want to. TAKE YOUR PICK."

He said no more on the subject. He just walked out the door as she looked out after him, wondering why he was such an idiot.

There was only so much rejection he could take.

- - -

………………………………………………………………………………………………

Ichigo himself didn't know why it was the forty fourth time he was rejected that it finally got to him. Maybe it was because she actually blew up at him and told him why. Maybe it was because he hated those reasons and maybe the person he was angry at wasn't her…okay it was her…but also himself.

His mother had taught him that when the right girl came along he would know it, and he had….several years down the line. But she had also told him that it would be easy; there she'd been only half right.

Loving someone was difficult, especially for people as emotionally stunted as they are. So going out on a limb and asking Rukia that simple, oh-so-important question was a big thing for Ichigo. And being shot down forty four times had to suck.

There just comes a point in situations like that when you have to give up and wonder if its really worth it.

………………………………………………………………………………………………

- - -

They hadn't spoken in a week when he got the call on his soul pager while on a mission in the human world.

"Ask me again," the voice on the other end said, "properly this time you fool."

He took one dumbstruck look at his mission partner, then back at the phone, never speaking.

"Go," Hitsugaya growled, rolling his eyes.

And he was off like a shot.

X x X

He found her in the center of their squads abandoned-for-the-night courtyard, standing on the bank of the tiny pond nestled at the root of a giant eucalyptus.

She stood when he approached her and looked up at him, smiling widely, her heliotrope eyes glimmering with something he couldn't place.

He gripped her shoulders intensely and stared deeply into her eyes, "Will you marry me?"

Her smile widened as she leaned up and pressed her lips to his gently, though she was too short and he had to lean up a bit to meet her half way. "Mmmm, no."

Her pulled away sharply, "Wha-?"

Rukia snorted a bit and shook her head, "I said no. Ask me why."

"You know, I really don't think I want to know. Forty five rejections is enough thanks."

"Forty six, you forgot to count the first one." She remarked absently.

"Thanks a bunch,"

"Don't mention it," she intoned. "Seriously though, ask me why." How she could be smiling while crushing a man's hopes and heart was truly a mystery and no he was not being melodramatic.

"Why?" He growled, low in his chest.

"Because I don't want to." She smiled.

"Good," he exploded, "now that _that's_ cleared up!"

"Listen you fool. There are two _very_ important reasons why I don't want to marry you." She held up a finger, "One; you have someone else living inside of you. You know it and I know it. I want all of you, not half and honestly could you marry me with that incessant guilt hanging over your head? That you have to share? That at any moment he could take over? Could you do it? I refuse to marry you until it's gone because I don't want partway, I want all of you. Every part and even though that hollow impedes no feelings I hold for you I could not give myself over to him as well."

He stayed quiet for a few moments, not meeting her eyes. He took a seat on a rock and picked up a small, smooth and flat pebble before flinging it into the pond. "You said there was another reason."

"There is," she took a deep breath, "It's simply that we are not the types to just get married. We aren't the types who just settle down and have a million kids. I'm not the type to quit my career and take care of them and neither of us could possibly just settle; with no drama, no fighting and no excitement. _We couldn't do it. _It's not what you want Ichigo but if you one day decide that its something you really want then I'll think about it again, but for now _please_ drop it and save yourself the trouble."

He turned to her, raised an eyebrow then swiftly pulled her into his arms before kissing her breathless. "I love you." He then tossed her like a sack of potatoes into the pond, making a large splash.

"You'll pay for that Kurosaki." Her eyes smoldered as she fixed him with her stare.

"God I hope so."

- - -

………………………………………………………………………………………………

To Ichigo and Rukia flirting entailed heated arguing, pet names often consisting of the words dumbass, bitch, fool and/or midget and foreplay was a bloody fight at the end of which both are severely bruised and mostly exerted.

Their entire relationship was a war and each day was a battle. The truth is though, that neither wants there to be a winner. Because they lived for the fight, fought in a war, warred for peace and found that peace in a fight.

And the sex was more than awesome.

**A/N: for those of you who don't get the Shakespeare joke…Its old English. She thinks its modern English thus has no idea what the hell he's talking about anyway…less funny now that I explained it.**

**Anyways, please be nice! Its long and it was oodles of fun to write!**

**Lurvs and glomps…and chocolate. Cant forget the chocolate!**

**Review please!**

**-Sierra*~**


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